IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET AN ACCOUNT, please write an
email to Administrator. User accounts are meant only to access repo
and report issues and/or generate pull requests.
This is a purpose-specific Git hosting for
BaseALT
projects. Thank you for your understanding!
Только зарегистрированные пользователи имеют доступ к сервису!
Для получения аккаунта, обратитесь к администратору.
Let vgck --updatemetadata repair cases where different mdas
hold indepedently valid but unmatching copies of the metadata,
i.e. different text metadata checksums or text metadata sizes.
vgck --updatemetadata would write the same correct
metadata to good mdas, and then to bad mdas, but the
sequence of vg_write/vg_commit calls betwen good and
bad mdas could cause a different description field to
be generated for good/bad mdas. (The description field
describing the command was recently included in the
ondisk copy of the metadata text.)
Usually md components are eliminated in label scan and/or
duplicate resolution, but they could sometimes get into
the vg_read stage, where set_pv_devices compares the
device to the PV.
If set_pv_devices runs an md component check and finds
one, vg_read should eliminate the components.
In set_pv_devices, run an md component check always
if the PV is smaller than the device (this is not
very common.) If the PV is larger than the device,
(more common), do the component check when the config
setting is "auto" (the default).
Previously, consecutive copies of metadata would have garbage
data in the space between them. After metadata wrapping,
the garbage would be portions of old metadata. This made
analysis of the metadata area more difficult.
This would happen because the start of new copy of metadata
is advanced from the end of the last copy to start at the
next 512 byte boundary.
Zero the space between consecutive copies of metadata by
extending each metadata write to end at the next 512 byte
boundary. The size of the metadata itself is not extended,
only the write. The buffer being written contains the
metadata text followed by the necessary number of zeros.
Previously the VG metadata description field (which contains
the command line) was only included in backup/archive copies
of the metadata. Now also include it in the metadata written
to the metadata areas.
The fact that vg repair is implemented as a part of vg read
has led to a messy and complicated implementation of vg_read,
and limited and uncontrolled repair capability. This splits
read and repair apart.
Summary
-------
- take all kinds of various repairs out of vg_read
- vg_read no longer writes anything
- vg_read now simply reads and returns vg metadata
- vg_read ignores bad or old copies of metadata
- vg_read proceeds with a single good copy of metadata
- improve error checks and handling when reading
- keep track of bad (corrupt) copies of metadata in lvmcache
- keep track of old (seqno) copies of metadata in lvmcache
- keep track of outdated PVs in lvmcache
- vg_write will do basic repairs
- new command vgck --updatemetdata will do all repairs
Details
-------
- In scan, do not delete dev from lvmcache if reading/processing fails;
the dev is still present, and removing it makes it look like the dev
is not there. Records are now kept about the problems with each PV
so they be fixed/repaired in the appropriate places.
- In scan, record a bad mda on failure, and delete the mda from
mda in use list so it will not be used by vg_read or vg_write,
only by repair.
- In scan, succeed if any good mda on a device is found, instead of
failing if any is bad. The bad/old copies of metadata should not
interfere with normal usage while good copies can be used.
- In scan, add a record of old mdas in lvmcache for later, do not repair
them while reading, and do not let them prevent us from finding and
using a good copy of metadata from elsewhere. One result is that
"inconsistent metadata" is no longer a read error, but instead a
record in lvmcache that can be addressed separate from the read.
- Treat a dev with no good mdas like a dev with no mdas, which is an
existing case we already handle.
- Don't use a fake vg "handle" for returning an error from vg_read,
or the vg_read_error function for getting that error number;
just return null if the vg cannot be read or used, and an error_flags
arg with flags set for the specific kind of error (which can be used
later for determining the kind of repair.)
- Saving an original copy of the vg metadata, for purposes of reverting
a write, is now done explicitly in vg_read instead of being hidden in
the vg_make_handle function.
- When a vg is not accessible due to "access restrictions" but is
otherwise fine, return the vg through the new error_vg arg so that
process_each_pv can skip the PVs in the VG while processing.
(This is a temporary accomodation for the way process_each_pv
tracks which devs have been looked at, and can be dropped later
when process_each_pv implementation dev tracking is changed.)
- vg_read does not try to fix or recover a vg, but now just reads the
metadata, checks access restrictions and returns it.
(Checking access restrictions might be better done outside of vg_read,
but this is a later improvement.)
- _vg_read now simply makes one attempt to read metadata from
each mda, and uses the most recent copy to return to the caller
in the form of a 'vg' struct.
(bad mdas were excluded during the scan and are not retried)
(old mdas were not excluded during scan and are retried here)
- vg_read uses _vg_read to get the latest copy of metadata from mdas,
and then makes various checks against it to produce warnings,
and to check if VG access is allowed (access restrictions include:
writable, foreign, shared, clustered, missing pvs).
- Things that were previously silently/automatically written by vg_read
that are now done by vg_write, based on the records made in lvmcache
during the scan and read:
. clearing the missing flag
. updating old copies of metadata
. clearing outdated pvs
. updating pv header flags
- Bad/corrupt metadata are now repaired; they were not before.
Test changes
------------
- A read command no longer writes the VG to repair it, so add a write
command to do a repair.
(inconsistent-metadata, unlost-pv)
- When a missing PV is removed from a VG, and then the device is
enabled again, vgck --updatemetadata is needed to clear the
outdated PV before it can be used again, where it wasn't before.
(lvconvert-repair-policy, lvconvert-repair-raid, lvconvert-repair,
mirror-vgreduce-removemissing, pv-ext-flags, unlost-pv)
Reading bad/old metadata
------------------------
- "bad metadata": the mda_header or metadata text has invalid fields
or can't be parsed by lvm. This is a form of corruption that would
not be caused by known failure scenarios. A checksum error is
typically included among the errors reported.
- "old metadata": a valid copy of the metadata that has a smaller seqno
than other copies of the metadata. This can happen if the device
failed, or io failed, or lvm failed while commiting new metadata
to all the metadata areas. Old metadata on a PV that has been
removed from the VG is the "outdated" case below.
When a VG has some PVs with bad/old metadata, lvm can simply ignore
the bad/old copies, and use a good copy. This is why there are
multiple copies of the metadata -- so it's available even when some
of the copies cannot be used. The bad/old copies do not have to be
repaired before the VG can be used (the repair can happen later.)
A PV with no good copies of the metadata simply falls back to being
treated like a PV with no mdas; a common and harmless configuration.
When bad/old metadata exists, lvm warns the user about it, and
suggests repairing it using a new metadata repair command.
Bad metadata in particular is something that users will want to
investigate and repair themselves, since it should not happen and
may indicate some other problem that needs to be fixed.
PVs with bad/old metadata are not the same as missing devices.
Missing devices will block various kinds of VG modification or
activation, but bad/old metadata will not.
Previously, lvm would attempt to repair bad/old metadata whenever
it was read. This was unnecessary since lvm does not require every
copy of the metadata to be used. It would also hide potential
problems that should be investigated by the user. It was also
dangerous in cases where the VG was on shared storage. The user
is now allowed to investigate potential problems and decide how
and when to repair them.
Repairing bad/old metadata
--------------------------
When label scan sees bad metadata in an mda, that mda is removed
from the lvmcache info->mdas list. This means that vg_read will
skip it, and not attempt to read/process it again. If it was
the only in-use mda on a PV, that PV is treated like a PV with
no mdas. It also means that vg_write will also skip the bad mda,
and not attempt to write new metadata to it. The only way to
repair bad metadata is with the metadata repair command.
When label scan sees old metadata in an mda, that mda is kept
in the lvmcache info->mdas list. This means that vg_read will
read/process it again, and likely see the same mismatch with
the other copies of the metadata. Like the label_scan, the
vg_read will simply ignore the old copy of the metadata and
use the latest copy. If the command is modifying the vg
(e.g. lvcreate), then vg_write, which writes new metadata to
every mda on info->mdas, will write the new metadata to the
mda that had the old version. If successful, this will resolve
the old metadata problem (without needing to run a metadata
repair command.)
Outdated PVs
------------
An outdated PV is a PV that has an old copy of VG metadata
that shows it is a member of the VG, but the latest copy of
the VG metadata does not include this PV. This happens if
the PV is disconnected, vgreduce --removemissing is run to
remove the PV from the VG, then the PV is reconnected.
In this case, the outdated PV needs have its outdated metadata
removed and the PV used flag needs to be cleared. This repair
will be done by the subsequent repair command. It is also done
if vgremove is run on the VG.
MISSING PVs
-----------
When a device is missing, most commands will refuse to modify
the VG. This is the simple case. More complicated is when
a command is allowed to modify the VG while it is missing a
device.
When a VG is written while a device is missing for one of it's PVs,
the VG metadata is written to disk with the MISSING flag on the PV
with the missing device. When the VG is next used, it is treated
as if the PV with the MISSING flag still has a missing device, even
if that device has reappeared.
If all LVs that were using a PV with the MISSING flag are removed
or repaired so that the MISSING PV is no longer used, then the
next time the VG metadata is written, the MISSING flag will be
dropped.
Alternative methods of clearing the MISSING flag are:
vgreduce --removemissing will remove PVs with missing devices,
or PVs with the MISSING flag where the device has reappeared.
vgextend --restoremissing will clear the MISSING flag on PVs
where the device has reappeared, allowing the VG to be used
normally. This must be done with caution since the reappeared
device may have old data that is inconsistent with data on other PVs.
Bad mda repair
--------------
The new command:
vgck --updatemetadata VG
first uses vg_write to repair old metadata, and other basic
issues mentioned above (old metadata, outdated PVs, pv_header
flags, MISSING_PV flags). It will also go further and repair
bad metadata:
. text metadata that has a bad checksum
. text metadata that is not parsable
. corrupt mda_header checksum and version fields
(To keep a clean diff, #if 0 is added around functions that
are replaced by new code. These commented functions are
removed by the following commit.)
uses vg_write to correct more common or less severe issues,
and also adds the ability to repair some metadata corruption
that couldn't be handled previously.
and implement it based on a device, not based
on a pv struct (which is not available when the
device is not a part of the vg.)
currently only the vgremove command wipes outdated
pvs until more advanced recovery is added in a
subsequent commit
Have the caller pass the label_sector to the read
function so the read function can set the sector
field in the label struct, instead of having the
read function return a pointer to the label for
the caller to set the sector field.
Also have the read function return a flag indicating
to the caller that the scanned device was identified
as a duplicate pv.
When reading metadata headers and text, use a new set
of flags to identify specific errors that are seen.
These will be used for more advanced repair in a
subsequent commit.
Use the recently added dump routines to produce the
old/traditional pvck output, and remove the code that
had been used for that.
The validation/checking done by the new routines means
that new lines prefixed with CHECK are printed for
incorrect values.
Add 'pvck --dump headers' to print all the
lvm ondisk structs. Also checks the values
and prints any problems.
The previous dump metadata is also converted to
use these same routines, which do not depend on lvm
fully scanning/reading/processing the headers and
metadata on disk. This makes it useful to get data in
cases where there is corruption that would otherwise
prevent the normal functions from working.
The new command 'pvck --dump metadata PV' will extract
the current version of VG metadata from a PV for testing
and debugging. --dump metadata_area extracts the entire
text metadata area.
If an md component is not excluded by other means and
vg_read is used to read metadata from it, then this new
check compares the device size with the PV size, and runs
a full md check on the device if the sizes don't match.
When a single copy of metadata gets within 1MB of the
current io_memory_size value, begin printing a warning
that the io_memory_size should be increased.
and "cachepool" to refer to a cache on a cache pool object.
The problem was that the --cachepool option was being used
to refer to both a cache pool object, and to a standard LV
used for caching. This could be somewhat confusing, and it
made it less clear when each kind would be used. By
separating them, it's clear when a cachepool or a cachevol
should be used.
Previously:
- lvm would use the cache pool approach when the user passed
a cache-pool LV to the --cachepool option.
- lvm would use the cache vol approach when the user passed
a standard LV in the --cachepool option.
Now:
- lvm will always use the cache pool approach when the user
uses the --cachepool option.
- lvm will always use the cache vol approach when the user
uses the --cachevol option.
. When using default settings, this commit should change
nothing. The first PE continues to be placed at 1 MiB
resulting in a metadata area size of 1020 KiB (for
4K page sizes; slightly smaller for larger page sizes.)
. When default_data_alignment is disabled in lvm.conf,
align pe_start at 1 MiB, based on a default metadata area
size that adapts to the page size. Previously, disabling
this option would result in mda_size that was too small
for common use, and produced a 64 KiB aligned pe_start.
. Customized pe_start and mda_size values continue to be
set as before in lvm.conf and command line.
. Remove the configure option for setting default_data_alignment
at build time.
. Improve alignment related option descriptions.
. Add section about alignment to pvcreate man page.
Previously, DEFAULT_PVMETADATASIZE was 255 sectors.
However, the fact that the config setting named
"default_data_alignment" has a default value of 1 (MiB)
meant that DEFAULT_PVMETADATASIZE was having no effect.
The metadata area size is the space between the start of
the metadata area (page size offset from the start of the
device) and the first PE (1 MiB by default due to
default_data_alignment 1.) The result is a 1020 KiB metadata
area on machines with 4KiB page size (1024 KiB - 4 KiB),
and smaller on machines with larger page size.
If default_data_alignment was set to 0 (disabled), then
DEFAULT_PVMETADATASIZE 255 would take effect, and produce a
metadata area that was 188 KiB and pe_start of 192 KiB.
This was too small for common use.
This is fixed by making the default metadata area size a
computed value that matches the value produced by
default_data_alignment.
If a single, standard LV is specified as the cache, use
it directly instead of converting it into a cache-pool
object with two separate LVs (for data and metadata).
With a single LV as the cache, lvm will use blocks at the
beginning for metadata, and the rest for data. Separate
dm linear devices are set up to point at the metadata and
data areas of the LV. These dm devs are given to the
dm-cache target to use.
The single LV cache cannot be resized without recreating it.
If the --poolmetadata option is used to specify an LV for
metadata, then a cache pool will be created (with separate
LVs for data and metadata.)
Usage:
$ lvcreate -n main -L 128M vg /dev/loop0
$ lvcreate -n fast -L 64M vg /dev/loop1
$ lvs -a vg
LV VG Attr LSize Type Devices
main vg -wi-a----- 128.00m linear /dev/loop0(0)
fast vg -wi-a----- 64.00m linear /dev/loop1(0)
$ lvconvert --type cache --cachepool fast vg/main
$ lvs -a vg
LV VG Attr LSize Origin Pool Type Devices
[fast] vg Cwi---C--- 64.00m linear /dev/loop1(0)
main vg Cwi---C--- 128.00m [main_corig] [fast] cache main_corig(0)
[main_corig] vg owi---C--- 128.00m linear /dev/loop0(0)
$ lvchange -ay vg/main
$ dmsetup ls
vg-fast_cdata (253:4)
vg-fast_cmeta (253:5)
vg-main_corig (253:6)
vg-main (253:24)
vg-fast (253:3)
$ dmsetup table
vg-fast_cdata: 0 98304 linear 253:3 32768
vg-fast_cmeta: 0 32768 linear 253:3 0
vg-main_corig: 0 262144 linear 7:0 2048
vg-main: 0 262144 cache 253:5 253:4 253:6 128 2 metadata2 writethrough mq 0
vg-fast: 0 131072 linear 7:1 2048
$ lvchange -an vg/min
$ lvconvert --splitcache vg/main
$ lvs -a vg
LV VG Attr LSize Type Devices
fast vg -wi------- 64.00m linear /dev/loop1(0)
main vg -wi------- 128.00m linear /dev/loop0(0)
lvm uses a bcache block size of 128K. A bcache block
at the end of the metadata area will overlap the PEs
from which LVs are allocated. How much depends on
alignments. When lvm reads and writes one of these
bcache blocks to update VG metadata, it can also be
reading and writing PEs that belong to an LV.
If these overlapping PEs are being written to by the
LV user (e.g. filesystem) at the same time that lvm
is modifying VG metadata in the overlapping bcache
block, then the user's updates to the PEs can be lost.
This patch is a quick hack to prevent lvm from writing
past the end of the metadata area.
Previously the size was limited by checking if the
old and new copies of the metadata overlapped.
This generally limited the size to about half of
the total space, but it could be larger given the
size differences between old and new. Now add a
direct check to limit the size to half the space.
Remove another instance of an invalid check for metadata
overflow during read. The previous instance was removed
in commit 5fb15b193.
This was checking for metadata that that overflowed the
circular disk metadata buffer during read, but such metadata
cannot be written, so it shouldn't be possible to find see.
Also, the check was incorrect and could trigger when there
was no overflow.
The vg_write/vg_commit code was imprecise, uncommented, and
hard to understand. Rewrite it with clearer, cleaner code,
extensive comments, descriptions of how it works, and add
more info in debugging output.
The minor changes in behavior are to things that were
either incorrect or probably unintended:
- vg_write/vg_commit no longer check that the current vgname at
the start of the text metadata matches the vgname being written.
This has already been done at least twice by the time they are
called, and repeating it again against the same cached data has
no use.
- A fragment of old removed code had been left behind that checked
if the old unused alignment policy would wrap. It was still
being checked to decide if the metadata area was full, which
could possibly cause an incorrect full metadata failure.
- vg_remove now clears both the raw_locns in the mda_header that
point to committed metadata (raw_locn slot 0) and precommitted
metadata (raw_locn slot 1). Previously it fully cleared the
committed slot, and would only clear the offset field in the
precommitted slot if it saw a problem with the metadata in the
vg being removed.
- read_metadata_location_summary was wrongly comparing the number
of wrapped bytes with an offset to report an error about the
metadata being too large. This wrong check is removed, it
could have resulted in erroneous errors.
Native disk scanning is now both reduced and
async/parallel, which makes it comparable in
performance (and often faster) when compared
to lvm using lvmetad.
Autoactivation now uses local temp files to record
online PVs, and no longer requires lvmetad.
There should be no apparent command-level change
in behavior.
As we start refactoring the code to break dependencies (see doc/refactoring.txt),
I want us to use full paths in the includes (eg, #include "base/data-struct/list.h").
This makes it more obvious when we're breaking abstraction boundaries, eg, including a file in
metadata/ from base/
There are likely more bits of code that can be removed,
e.g. lvm1/pool-specific bits of code that were identified
using FMT flags.
The vgconvert command can likely be reduced further.
The lvm1-specific config settings should probably have
some other fields set for proper deprecation.
For reporting commands (pvs,vgs,lvs,pvdisplay,vgdisplay,lvdisplay)
we do not need to repeat the label scan of devices in vg_read if
they all had matching metadata in the initial label scan. The
data read by label scan can just be reused for the vg_read.
This cuts the amount of device i/o in half, from two reads of
each device to one. We have to be careful to avoid repairing
the VG if we've skipped rescanning. (The VG repair code is very
poor, and will be redone soon.)
Recent changes allow some major simplification of the way
lvmcache works and is used. lvmcache_label_scan is now
called in a controlled fashion at the start of commands,
and not via various unpredictable side effects. Remove
various calls to it from other places. lvmcache_label_scan
should not be called from anywhere during a command, because
it produces an incorrect representation of PVs with no MDAs,
and misclassifies them as orphans. This has been a long
standing problem. The invalid flag and rescanning based on
that is no longer used and removed. The 'force' variation is
no longer needed and removed.
The improved detection of bad metadata when scanning
(where errors were ignored before) means we now have to
override some errors when forcibly erasing damaged metadata.
This is a temporary hacky workaround to the problem of
reads going through bcache and writes not using bcache.
The write path wants to read parts of data that it is
incrementally writing to disk, but the reads (using
bcache) don't work because the writes are not in the
bcache. For now, add a dev to bcache before each attempt
to read it in case it's being used on the write path.
Create a new dev->bcache_fd that the scanning code owns
and is in charge of opening/closing. This prevents other
parts of lvm code (which do various open/close) from
interfering with the bcache fd. A number of dev_open
and dev_close are removed from the reading path since
the read path now uses the bcache.
With that in place, open(O_EXCL) for pvcreate/pvremove
can then be fixed. That wouldn't work previously because
of other open fds.
When process_each_pv() calls vg_read() on the orphan VG, the
internal implementation was doing an unnecessary
lvmcache_label_scan() and two unnecessary label_read() calls
on each orphan. Some of those unnecessary label scans/reads
would sometimes be skipped due to caching, but the code was
always doing at least one unnecessary read on each orphan.
The common format_text case was also unecessarily calling into
the format-specific pv_read() function which actually did nothing.
By analyzing each case in which vg_read() was being called on
the orphan VG, we can say that all of the label scans/reads
in vg_read_orphans are unnecessary:
1. reporting commands: the information saved in lvmcache by
the original label scan can be reported. There is no advantage
to repeating the label scan on the orphans a second time before
reporting it.
2. pvcreate/vgcreate/vgextend: these all share a common
implementation in pvcreate_each_device(). That function
already rescans labels after acquiring the orphan VG lock,
which ensures that the command is using valid lvmcache
information.
This fixes the use of lvmcache_label_rescan_vg() in the previous
commit for the special case of independent metadata areas.
label scan is about discovering VG name to device associations
using information from disks, but devices in VGs with
independent metadata areas have no information on disk, so
the label scan does nothing for these VGs/devices.
With independent metadata areas, only the VG metadata found
in files is used. This metadata is found and read in
vg_read in the processing phase.
lvmcache_label_rescan_vg() drops lvmcache info for the VG devices
before repeating the label scan on them. In the case of
independent metadata areas, there is no metadata on devices, so the
label scan of the devices will find nothing, so will not recreate
the necessary vginfo/info data in lvmcache for the VG. Fix this
by setting a flag in the lvmcache vginfo struct indicating that
the VG uses independent metadata areas, and label rescanning should
be skipped.
In the case of independent metadata areas, it is the metadata
processing in the vg_read phase that sets up the lvmcache
vginfo/info information, and label scan has no role.
Move the location of scans to make it clearer and avoid
unnecessary repeated scanning. There should be one scan
at the start of a command which is then used through the
rest of command processing.
Previously, the initial label scan was called as a side effect
from various utility functions. This would lead to it being called
unnecessarily. It is an expensive operation, and should only be
called when necessary. Also, this is a primary step in the
function of the command, and as such it should be called prominently
at the top level of command processing, not as a hidden side effect
of a utility function. lvm knows exactly where and when the
label scan needs to be done. Because of this, move the label scan
calls from the internal functions to the top level of processing.
Other specific instances of lvmcache_label_scan() are still called
unnecessarily or unclearly by specific commands that do not use
the common process_each functions. These will be improved in
future commits.
During the processing phase, rescanning labels for devices in a VG
needs to be done after the VG lock is acquired in case things have
changed since the initial label scan. This was being done by way
of rescanning devices that had the INVALID flag set in lvmcache.
This usually approximated the right set of devices, but it was not
exact, and obfuscated the real requirement. Correct this by using
a new function that rescans the devices in the VG:
lvmcache_label_rescan_vg().
Apart from being inexact, the rescanning was extremely well hidden.
_vg_read() would call ->create_instance(), _text_create_text_instance(),
_create_vg_text_instance() which would call lvmcache_label_scan()
which would call _scan_invalid() which repeats the label scan on
devices flagged INVALID. lvmcache_label_rescan_vg() is now called
prominently by _vg_read() directly.
To do label scanning, lvm code calls lvmcache_label_scan().
Change lvmcache_label_scan() to use the new label_scan()
based on bcache.
Also add lvmcache_label_rescan_vg() which calls the new
label_scan_devs() which does label scanning on only the
specified devices. This is for a subsequent commit and
is not yet used.
New label_scan function populates bcache for each device
on the system.
The two read paths are updated to get data from bcache.
The bcache is not yet used for writing. bcache blocks
for a device are invalidated when the device is written.
No longer use the external 'result' pointer internally to set up the
cached label. The callback _set_label_read_result() is now given the
internal label pointer directly
Callers that don't need the result are no longer required to pass a
label pointer into label_read().
Callers that read larger amounts of data now get a pointer to read-only
data directly without copying it through an intermediate buffer. This
data is owned by the device layer so the callers no longer free it.
If it obtains the data, it passes it into the supplied callback function
and returns 1. Otherwise the callback receives failed = 1.
Updated config_file_read_fd to use this and similarly return the data
via a callback fn of its own.
Dedicated functions are now used to process each piece of data obtained,
so the refactoring in this file gives us one for the vgsummary and one
for the metadata header. This new type of function takes two parameters
(for now), the obtained data plus a single struct (that must not
reference any data on the stack) that wraps up the entire context needed
to process it.
Rename dev_read() to dev_read_buf() - the function that reads data
into a supplied buffer.
Introduce a new dev_read() that allocates the buffer it returns and
switch the important users over to this. No caller may change the
returned data. (For now, callers are responsible for freeing it after
use, but later the device layer will take full ownership.)
dev_read_buf() should only be used for tiny buffers or unimportant code
(such as the old disk formats).
The creation of wrapped around metadata - where the start of metadata is
written up to the end of the buffer and the remainder follows back at
the start of the buffer - is now restricted to cases where writing the
metadata in one piece wouldn't fit. This shouldn't happen in 'normal'
usage so let's begin treating the code for this as a special case that
can be ignored when optimising 'normal' cases.
If there is sufficient space in the metadata area, align the next
metadata to a disk offset that is a multiple of 4096 bytes and
don't write it circularly. If it doesn't all fit at the end
of the metadata area, go back to the start and write it all there
contiguously.
If there is insufficient space to use the new stricter rules, revert to
the original behaviour, aligning on 512-byte boundaries wrapping around
the circular buffer as required.
Use new ALIGN_ABSOLUTE macro when calculating the start location
of new metadata and adjust the end of buffer detection so that
there is no longer an imposed gap between old and new metadata.
Currently both start and offset should always be divisible by alignment,
so this should have no effect, but a later patch will increase alignment
so these variables can no longer be optimised out.
